First Love
by September Light
Summary: There's something really special about your first love. It's the one that sweeps you off your feet, leaves you breathless and it's the first one makes you believe that something can actually last forever. Peter/Gwen; oneshot; snapshot style.


_Woo! Finally finished this monster of a oneshot, hehe. But anyway, I saw The Amazing Spider-Man like a week after it came out with my best friend in the entire world, and I absolutely loved it! The chemistry between Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield is undeniable, and I've been a fan of Emma Stone ever since Easy A and when I saw the Help, I fell in love with her even more. Andrew Garfield is a brilliant actor, and I'm completely and totally in love with him, ever since I saw him in the Social Network two years ago - and who cares about the age difference, age can't deny true love! _

_But anyway, I wrote this and it's like, 15000 words - and sometimes unbearable, but if I have one request for you readers it's one thing: read it all the way through. You don't have to like it or anything, I just feel like if you're gong to start it, you should finish it! :D Please?_

_Oh! I almost forgot! How could I?! This story was inspired by **Lying Heart** by **ninemilestogo **and since you're in this fandom, you probably should have already read it, because it's like the most beautiful and amazing fic ever - but it huuuuuuurts. ninemilestogo, if you happen to be here right now, I think you're amazing!_

_Moving on, I hope you enjoy this, I wrote it in snapshot style because it's my specialty, but I'll stop boring you now and you can read it!_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own The Amazing Spider-Man or anything correlating to it, and if you've seen it before, it probably isn't mine! However, this piece in it's entirety is mine, and I'd really like it if you didn't steal it or anything like that! Thanks! :D**  
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**First Love**

by _September Light_

There's something really special about your first love. It's the one that sweeps you off your feet, leaves you breathless and it's the first one makes you believe that something can actually last forever.

Her heartbeat escalates when she's with him, she feels a little more nervous but yet a little more alive when she's kissing Peter Parker, or at least that's how she would try to describe it. She's seventeen years old and they say a love like this only comes once in a lifetime, and she's completely content with this - the whole prospect of being with this boy forever seems like such a good idea. But even Gwen Stacy knows that this is silly teenage puppy-love talking, she's heard enough stories and watched her friends' parents get divorced, and she knows that love doesn't always last, but yet she falls into it anyway, deeply, completely, indubitably, and without a single fear on her mind that it might end in a broken heart.

"Peter," she murmurs one day, when she's wrapped up in his arms and she doesn't have to think about how he's Spider-Man and he could possibly die any day and she wouldn't be able to do anything about it - a fear that has plagued her every single time since she was five years old when she watched her father walk out the door.

"Hmm?" he asks, his voice quiet and muffled as his lips are against her blonde hair.

Gwen looks up at him, her eyes wide and questioning, though they're a little bit too innocent that he expects something in a heartbeat - and she knows that he's anxiously waiting for her to speak. She gives him a smile before she voices her question, "Do you ever see us.. you know," she starts, her voice slow. "Hypothetically, if everything works out in the end, do you think we could get married?"

He can't say he's not surprised by the question, because he reels back slightly, blinking once, twice, then a third time to make sure this is reality, and that she is really asking if one day she'd be walking down the aisle with something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. "Um," Peter says, because he's never exactly been good at words. He's the epitome of social awkwardness, the king of stuttering and spluttering and all of the things that could classify him as speech-impaired - but sadly he does not have the pretext to use that excuse. "I - I guess that if, well, I don't know if you would like, I think, I think that sounds nice. If you and I were to get married."

His cheeks are flushed red from embarrassment, and she can't help but find it super adorable, the way he is when he gets nervous and when he's caught off guard. "I wonder what we'd name our kids," Gwen contemplates, curiously, her finger under her chin.

Peter's quiet for a moment as he holds her, letting the comment hang in the air. "I like the name Emily," he says, finally, and there's something in his eyes that she's never seen before. He seems to be glowing, and it's irresistible how happy he looks just at the thought. She can't help but lean up to kiss him lightly on the cheek.

"Emily Parker," she tries out the name, as if to to test the waters - to see how it sounds. She grins at the sound of it. "I like it," she says, running her fingers through his hair and for a minute, it's like she can see their future, bright, happy, _together_. And she knows he sees it too as he leans down and captures her lips in a kiss.

.

If he knows one thing for sure, it's that he'll never ever love anyone more than he loves Gwen Stacy. It's like the first time again everytime he sees her. After all this time, he gets butterflies in his stomach, and his heart feels like it's about to soar whenever she meets his eyes, and there's all kinds of nervousness and he just feels like a little six-year-old boy with a crush on a beautiful girl. He wants to hold her hand and kiss her and love her, and it's so sweet and innocent the way he feels. It's pure and untainted and he knows that it's one in seven billion to find a love like this.

They play normal for one night, nothing about mutant monsters or robots or mad scientists or prevailing thoughts of death hanging over them as he actually goes through the front entrance of her apartment (despite the _terrifying _doorman), and knocks on her door, clad in a black suit with a red tie. Sometimes, after experiencing so much, losing a father figure for the both of them, and having to deal with things way beyond what the normal teenagers would have to deal with - they forget that they're just juniors in high school and they don't have to save the world all the time.

So a few weeks before the Prom, Peter casually suggests the idea that they should go together, and she seems way more excited about the idea than he had at first imagined. They're walking down the hall of the school after the bell rings, hand tightly in hand as they walk past the brightly decorated poster showcasing the latest social event at Midtown Science High.

"Junior Prom, he reads, their pace slowing to peer at the poster's contents. "Maybe we should go," Peter says, with a hint of humor in his voice, because the idea of him trying to "get down" on the dance floor is an absolutely ridiculous mental picture that he's sure no one would like to see.

But as he turns around to look at her, she has this huge smile on her face, and she's biting her lip in the most adorable way he's ever seen and looking up at him with her hopeful brown eyes and it's then when he knows that he could never deny her anything. "Do you really want to go?" Gwen asks, unsure, unwilling to show any amount of excitement just in case he wasn't serious and if there's anything that Gwen Stacy hates, it's getting let down.

But he knows, he knows that she's looking forward to it - he can see it in her eyes- and he only wants to make her happy so he says, "Yes," with a grin. He lifts her hand to kiss it lightly, like she's a Princess and he's a Prince, and it all feels so cheesy that it makes her laugh. "Miss Stacy, would you like to go to Prom with me?"

"I don't know, Mr. Parker," she answers, in an obviously fake British accent, her voice sugar-coated. "I have to check my schedule, for I am _oh-so-busy_," she replies, with a laugh. Gwen puts a finger under her chin, tapping it in mock concentration, as she looks up and pretends to think.

"Miss Stacy, please don't keep me waiting forever," he says, a stern tone in his voice.

She smiles, leaning up to him to whisper, "Of course I will, Peter," before pressing her lips onto his and wrapping her arms around his neck, bringing him close to her in the nearly empty hallway. He can't help but think that he is the luckiest guy in the world to be with the most beautiful girl in the universe.

He's still thinking about this when the door opens and he's face to face with the mother of the girl of his dreams. She tells him to wait in the living room for Gwen to finish getting ready, and he taps his foot impatiently and he feels awkward, because it's too quiet in the house and all her brothers are watching him with steely-eyes.

He clears his throat, opening his mouth to start a conversation to break the silence, but thank goodness, Gwen shouts, "I'm ready!" Then the sound of the door shutting, and he thanks whatever higher power or immortal god that is looking down on him for the save, because Peter's sure that if he opened his mouth, it'd just be a bunch of flustered, incomprehensible sentences and he'd basically make a fool of himself in front of the family of the girl he loves so much.

Peter stands up, dusting off his pants as he watches the breathtaking, ravishing, stunning Gwen Stacy walk into the room. His breath catches, and for a minute he forgets everything, all the things he planned to say to her, the dozen roses he meant to hand to her, and he just stands there, dazed as he takes it all in. All he can think right now is – _god, she's beautiful._

Her blonde hair is curled intricately, falling down past her shoulders, the headband he is ever so used to seeing replaced with a sparkling butterfly clip. The red dress she's wearing accentuates her curves, brings out her eyes and her smile, and how did he ever get so lucky to be with someone like her? He's completely mesmerized, and he realizes that he's literally been staring at her for a longer-than-appropriate time, when she speaks, "Peter?"

Frozen and feeling as if his feet were nailed to the floor below him, he lets himself blink a few times before trying to regain his composure, the redness in his cheeks feeling as if they were on fire. "Gwen," he says, suddenly remembering the flowers in his hand, as he, in a jerky and not at all smooth manner, lifts his arm up to give her the roses. "These- these are for you."

Peter hears her brother's stifled laughter from behind him, his face feeling hotter, as she takes them in her hand, "Thank you, Peter," Gwen says so easily, though she's clearly entertained and he feels like such an idiot. _You said you didn't want to make a fool of yourself in front of her family, and yet you did,_ he admonishes himself in his head.

They take pictures and do poses and laugh and he promises her mom that he'll bring her home safe and sound before her curfew, and it feels so normal that he wonders if this is how it always feels like when you're in love and going to a dance together.

It's when they leave when he leans over, lightly brushing her ear, "You look absolutely gorgeous," and there's no stuttering or spluttering or awkwardness in the way he says it, and he almost feels proud of himself for being able to do so. And when she looks at him, he swears he can see the love in her eyes.

And if you were to see them that night, dancing and tripping over each other's feet, you'd never even know that he was a masked superhero with virtually no parents, and she was a girl that was still broken from the recent death of father - you'd think that they were just Peter and Gwen, two completely _ordinary_ teenagers in love having the time of their lives.

.

"Have you ever heard of the song, 'Stacy's Mom?'" Peter asks her one day when she invites him over for dinner one night, an amused look on his face as he's sitting in her chair, scrolling through the songs on his iPod. She glances at him, confused, but he seems _this _close to laughing that she feels like she's missing something substantial.

"No," she answers slowly, hesitating. She tilts her head slightly, curious. "Why?"

He unwraps the headphones from around his iPod and chooses a song, handing it over to her. "I know your name's not Stacy, but let's just pretend that they're referring to you by your surname," he tells her as Gwen skeptically takes the device from his hands.

She slips on the headphones and the reaction that the song invokes from her makes him curl up in the chair laughing. Gwen's eyes widen, and her hand clasps over her mouth in shock. He's too busy laughing at her and she pulls off the headphones and leans over to smack him in the chest. "That is _terrible_!"

He shrugs, "It's catchy," Peter explains, simply, though he's still laughing.

"You don't _really_ think my mom has 'got it going on', do you?" she questions, rubbing her temples with her fingers as she shakes her head. There's silence to the question, as Gwen looks up in shock. "_Do you?_"

She sees the guilty, sheepish expression on Peter's face before she covers her eyes with her hands. "That is _sick_ Peter, _absolutely sick_."

But then he laughs again, and he insists that he's only joking and that no, he definitely does not want to get with Gwen Stacy's mom. But to this day, Gwen can never see Peter and her mother in the same room, the same way - ever again.

.

Father's Day has always been the worst for Peter Parker. Ever since he was a child and in class, his teachers had him write nice notes about how much he appreciated his father, but he was one of the few people in the class who proclaimed that they didn't _have_ a father. It's always been something he's been insecure about, not having one mom and one dad - a perfect family dynamic, and it boils inside of him every single time he hears someone say how they hate their parents, because at least they _have_ them.

But as he sat there at his desk, at age eight, staring at a blank sheet of paper, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. They told him to write to his guardian, so he'd tap his pencil on the desk and think about all the nice words he could possibly say to Uncle Ben - the closest thing Peter's ever had as a father growing up. And Peter loves Uncle Ben, Peter loves him more than any other man in the world, and now that he's seventeen-years-old and the two people he's ever seen as a father figure are dead, he feels hopelessly sad.

He doesn't want to get up that morning when he's laying in bed, because all the pain from losing his uncle is still so eminent and it's all rushing back. But he manages to pull himself out of the covers, brush his teeth and hair, wash his face, and head down for breakfast with Aunt May. He can't do that to Aunt May, he can't leave her to have breakfast on her own, not on this day where he's sure will go down in history as the Uncle Ben remembrance day.

He uses his knife to cut his waffle into tiny, tiny pieces, trying to distract himself from the flashing memories going through his mind of all the times he has loved Uncle Ben, and all the times where he should've loved him more. He knows Aunt May is thinking the same thing as she's just sitting and holding her coffee mug in her hands at the table, her eyes lost in thought.

"So," Peter starts, trying to break the silence casually, though it only sounds awkward and it comes out sounding kind of mangled. Aunt May looks up in surprise. "The, um, the Stark Expo released its list of panels online today," he says, after racking his brain for something to say.

"Did it really?" she asks, smoothly, sounding interested, though he knows that she isn't particularly interested in it.

Peter nods, putting a piece of the waffle in his mouth. "Yeah, it's great," he coughs, rubbing the back of his neck. Oh, why couldn't he be blessed with _normal_ social skills like a _normal _person? "I'm really excited." He doesn't bother to elaborate, figuring that it wouldn't matter either way.

"I'm glad," Aunt May replies, beginning to take a sip of her coffee now.

He wonders what it'd be like if he actually did have a father. Would his father bring him to play football at the park and would they go for ice cream? As a kid, he longed for that kind of experience, going back to school on Monday and hearing his friends talk about what an _amazing_ day they had with their father and he would sit there and listen, playing with his fingers in his lap with his head slightly looking down.

He thinks about all the other people and what they're doing on this day. He wonders what Gwen is doing – _oh god, Gwen!_ How could Peter have forgotten? His heart is beating faster, and he stands up so suddenly from his chair that Aunt May startles. "I have to go see Gwen," he tells her, the truth for once, desperately trying to hurry.

He pulls his backpack over his shoulder, kissing his aunt on her cheek as he heads out the door.

He doesn't really like to think about it, but Peter feels extremely responsible for Captain Stacy's death. Not only had he indirectly gotten him killed, but he has disregarded his dying wish. But being seventeen-years-old, Peter has almost never done the right thing, he's practically a child – he makes mistakes and he does stupid, irrational things and runs into fights way beyond his abilities, but one thing he has never failed at is loving Gwen Stacy.

So as he swings onto her fire escape for the millionth time since they've been together, and he sees her on the ground, with a stack of photo albums right in front of her, with her head down and a box of tissues next to her, he swears that if he could do anything to change the past, to bring her father back, he would without a second thought.

Peter lets his fist rise up to knock against the glass window, preparing himself for the sight he's about to see as she turns her head, but no matter how much he tries, his heart still drops when he sees her, swollen eyes, flushed face, wet cheeks.

She pulls herself off the ground in the same manner that he tried to pull himself out of his bed this morning, and opens the window to let him in. He pulls her in his arms right away, never letting her go as he tightens his grip on her and lets her cry. He doesn't even care if his nice shirt is getting wet, because he cares for her so much that he'll hold her all day if she wants to.

"I miss him so much," Gwen manages to say between her sobs. Her words are broken, coming out in jagged phrases between her cries.

He lets his lips press against the top of her head and he buries his nose in her sweet-smelling blonde hair, as he lets them fall to the ground as he rocks her gently and she grabs at his shirt trying to pull him closer. He doesn't say anything – just holds her and comforts her, and he doesn't quite know how long it's been, but eventually her sobs start to quiet and she's beginning to compose herself again.

Peter gently pulls her back so he can look at her, one hand on her shoulder and another reaching up to wipe the last few stray tears on her cheeks. He wants to cry too, but he's past that. He used to cry, but now he just feels raw, empty, whenever the day comes by, because he's spent so many days without a father that it's becoming normal for him. But for Gwen, the misery is so recent, that he wishes he could take away the pain - this feeling that he knows so well- but even he knows that's impossible.

But he'll try. She's looking into his eyes now, exhausted, worn-out from all the crying, but despite it all, in a peculiar sort of way, she still looks like the strongest girl he has ever met.

.

He takes her out to the street fair in the north side of Queens afterwards, decides that there would be no use sitting around in her room, figures that it's be better to try to make a good memory out of the day, instead of a bad one. Peter realizes quickly that with his impressive superhuman reflexes, aim, and strength, winning the games at the carnival booths are almost _way_ too easy.

She laughs and she scolds him, "Peter, you're practically cheating these people out of their own money," but Gwen doesn't complain as she's holding around a huge stuffed bunny that's probably half her size as she walks around the whole fair, receiving envious eyes from the other girls who's boyfriends weren't able to win them anything from these obviously rigged, and almost impossible games.

"Just being a good boyfriend," he retorts, chuckling.

Peter can't help but find her completely adorable, as she has this gigantic smile on her face, and her eyes are shining and he swears she can't be more beautiful than she is right now, having a good time with him on this nice spring day, carrying a bunny that he's sure will take up most of the space on her bed. He's staring at her with these sort of teenage love-struck eyes and like she's the only girl in the universe, when suddenly she pulls him towards another carnival booth game. "Win this game for me? Please?"

He looks over at the game – a standard Milk Bottle toss, six bottles stacked in a pyramid, seems easy enough to knock down, but he knows this isn't the case. He's sure that out of the six, there's at least three of them with lead bottoms that are much harder to knock down, but he also knows that with his Spider-Man abilities, it'll be a piece of cake.

"What happened to cheating people out of their own money?" Peter teases, raising his eyebrows. Gwen childishly sticks her tongue out at him.

"What happened to being a good boyfriend?" Gwen asks in retaliation, holding tighter to her oversized bunny. He gives her a cheery smile before turning around to face the guy running the stand – letting himself be modest and buying three tries to knock it down, even though he knows that he only needs one.

He pays the man, pushing the money over and taking the three balls out of his hand. Peter glances carefully at the Milk Bottles, as if trying to survey which ones are the heavier ones (he assumes they're at the bottom, because that's the easiest way to scam people), and he looks up at the man who sort of has this knowing smirk on his face.

He allows himself to hesitate for a moment, pretending to seem puzzled by the milk bottles, before he throws it, the ball flying at high speeds and forcefully knocking over all six milk bottles without a single thought. He glances back up to the man, who is staring at him with his mouth slightly ajar, a shocked expression on his face.

Peter turns back to Gwen, who looks oddly smug as she stands right next to him. "What prize do you want, Gwen?" Peter asks, a smile on his face.

She points at one on the second row, and his eyes follow her finger and Peter can't help but laugh. When the man takes down the cartoonized, and _very_ adorable plush of Spider-Man, Gwen holds it close to her and knows that it'll be her most prized possession to date.

.

"I have a question for you," Gwen states as he's walking her home from school, his skateboard wedged under his arm and his other hand intertwined with Gwen's. He looks up to survey her, though she doesn't seem to have the innocent look on her face that indicates a rather interesting question - it seems as if she's genuinely curious about something.

He raises his eyebrows. "Another question?"

She rolls her eyes. "I'm a scientist. We ask questions. How do you think we discovered Penicillin? Natural Selection? Glycolysis?" She says this with such an accusatory tone that he has to chuckle at her words, a sort of half-smile spreading across his face.

"Alright, alright," Peter says, surrendering. "What's your question?"

She uses her free hand to adjust her headband, pushing the bangs out of her eyes before looking right at Peter. "So, when I see a spider... crawling on my walls and being a nuisance, would it be wrong to kill it?" She asks this in the most serious, concerned tone and there's the most focused expression on her face that he decides he would like to toy with her a little.

"Did you kill a spider or something?" he asks in response, a horrified look on his face (he probably shouldn't ever consider acting as a career choice), and Gwen looks away immediately, guilt filling her.

"No! I mean, yes, but it was out of habit!" Gwen exclaims, covering her mouth with her hands, looking as if she had sinned. He tries not to let himself laugh at how she's acting as he continues.

"I can't believe it. You killed, essentially, me! Gwen Stacy, I will never forgive you for what you have done," Peter lets her hand go, letting it drop to her side as he turns his head and stomps away from her dramatically. He drops his skateboard and goes around the corner, leaving her in shock.

When he comes back, he's laughing, and really laughing, the kind of laughter that bubbles up in your chest and makes you feel all warm inside - and when she hits him for making fun of her, he laughs even harder - and soon she is too. These are the moments he lives for, clutching their stomachs and cheeks hurting from laughing too much, and it's just all good feeling and he _loves_ it.

"But seriously," Gwen says, after she catches her breath. "What should I do the next time I see a spider?"

.

There's a moment in time where she's standing a little too close to Spider-Man, because Peter heard the sirens and quickly changed into his suit, missing their dinner reservation at seven. He apologizes to her, but she just shrugs it off, telling him that it's his duty, and she's definitely not one to stand in the way of his heroic obligations.

Gwen's caught in the middle of a fight between him and possibly the most technologically advanced droid of all time. It's highly-functional, and clearly being controlled not internally, but by a remote satellite signal from somewhere far where Peter can't detect. She's terrified, she's not superhuman, and to be honest, she's feeling like a damsel in distress as she's standing there completely petrified by the contraption that is aiming a laser at her and threatening to kill her.

But her knight in shining armor (or Peter in a spandex-suit) swoops in and saves her just a moment before she is disintegrated to ashes, and she holds tight as he swings on his biocable and places her safely away from the commotion before leaving just as quick to defeat the robot.

His expression is unreadable when he walks her home that night. He doesn't give her a good night kiss, like he always would after a date, he just awkwardly says goodbye and leaves. She tries not to think too much about it.

.

Gwen knows he's been deep in thought when she walks over to open her window to let him into her room the next day. She sees it, the way he looks down and the way his eyebrows sort of crinkle and there's a slight pout in his lip, and as they're standing in her room, she lets her hand reach up the brush the side of his hair lightly. "What's wrong?" Gwen asks, looking up at him, though he's biting his lip, not meeting her eyes.

"Peter?" she asks again, but he tilts his head slightly and his eyes are red - it looks like he's about to cry and that he didn't sleep all night. He's shaking his head, rapidly, over and over like he's trying to convince himself of something, but for the first time in Gwen's life, she feels her heart drop to her stomach like she knows something bad is going to happen.

"Your dad - he was right," he says, finally. It's a simple sentence, unclear, vague, but yet she knows exactly what it means. She can't help the lump that is rising in her throat, making it hard for her to breathe, suffocating her in ways she doesn't know were possible.

But even though she knows, she still lets herself ask, "What?" It's quiet, questioning, deflated.

He closes his eyes, a pained look on his face and she _knows_ he doesn't want to do this, has no doubt whatsoever in her mind that he _loves_ her, and he can't be doing this to her. Peter opens his eyes again, though his facial expression is different, colder, harder. "We can't see each other anymore." He says, his voice the strongest she's ever heard it.

"Peter, if this is about the-"

"You almost _died_, Gwen. _Died,_" Peter cuts her off, stepping away from her slightly, desperately trying to make her understand, his voice pleading for her to listen. But she's stubborn, even as he backs away, she steps closer to him, still in close proximity to each other. "You can't - you can't _imagine_ how I'd feel if you did. I knew I should have listened to that promise to your father, I just, I can't," he stops, trying to formulate words though nothing seems to be going smoothly for him.

"Can't what?" she says, petulantly, sounding like a child. Gwen crosses her arms over her chest, not backing off. "Can't be with me because of some _ridiculous_ promise you made to stay away from me?"

He winces. "Gwen, you have to understand, I can't - I can't live with the idea that being with you puts you in danger. You don't deserve that," he tries again, though nothing is quite getting through to her, her thoughts still adamant on the idea that there is no one else she could ever possibly be with than him, regardless of his alter ego as Spider-Man.

"You don't get to decide what I deserve," Gwen protests, getting angrier. "I want _you_, Peter."

He doesn't look away from her, though his expression is stone-cold. His voice is harsh, indifferent when he speaks, and he sounds like such a different person. "I don't want _you_, Gwen." It cuts her deep, she literally feels her heart breaking into pieces as she feels as if all the air in the room has been sucked out. She glances at him, uncomprehending, though the words hurt and she looks like she's going to break down any second.

It can't be true, it just can't be. A million thoughts run through her mind and she tries to think of something to say, some comeback to his cruel words, but it hurts too much. It couldn't have all been a lie, every kind word, every laugh, every kiss, she knows it isn't, she knows he's being mean to her on purpose, she's not an idiot - but she can't help but doubt everything. He turns around to face the window, his fingers on the latch, preparing to open it, she's desperate to know what he's thinking.

.

He doesn't want to go, he thinks as he's holding onto her window. She doesn't want him to go, he knows. Then why is he leaving? _Because he has to_, Peter tries to convince himself. He lets his hand drop from the latch as he turns around to look at her again.

"Please don't do this, Peter," she begs, every bit of her once strong and fighting voice now crumbling, the sound of her almost like a mouse. "Don't leave me," she pleads, her voice breaking, and the way she looks right now makes his heart shatter in a million pieces, and if it were any other way, if he could ever be with her and keep her out of harm's way he would in a heartbeat, because as he's looking at her right now, he knows that he can't possibly ever be with anyone other than Gwen Stacy.

She's his everything… but sometimes when you love someone, you have to do what's right for them, even if it kills you inside. And he's thinking that as he tries to walk away from her even though all he wants to do is hold her in his arms and kiss her and tell her he loves her. He doesn't say a word, because he knows his mouth will betray him, that the minute he opens his mouth without thinking, it'll be a confession of how much she means to him and how much he cares about her and how he never ever wants to hurt her.

"Please?" Gwen asks, her voice tiny, and she's sitting on the bed, with her arms wrapped around herself like she's trying to hold herself together, and she's looking at him with these pleading eyes and he's this close to breaking, this close to giving up. But then he remembers, he remembers how close he was to losing her, and he jerks away, his eyes finding a particular spot at her wall to stare at so he won't have to look into her eyes.

He sees flashes of what he remembers a terrified Gwen, and a robot that could have killed her, because she was this close to him, and then his mind is made. Peter can't take that risk. He can't bear the idea of Gwen being in danger, dying at his expense. It's not just the promise to his father that he's honoring, it's a selfish need to keep her alive - even if at a distance, because he knows that if she dies, he'll never be the same.

But she's insistent, desperate now to make him hear her, to make him listen to her. He closes his eyes and turns around again, his hand reattaching on the latch. "Peter," Gwen tries again, and even though he refuses to look at her, he can tell that she's crying by the sound of her voice.

He hesitates for a moment, standing there with his hand on the latch, letting his head hang low, a sob creeping up his throat as well, as he feels tears burning in the back of his eyes. His back is still facing her, he's shaking his head and he knows what he's doing. He hopes that one day she'll find a better man for her, one that won't hurt her the way he does, one that will keep her safe and love her - and the thought of another man kissing Gwen is killing him, wrenching his gut on the inside, but he doesn't turn around because he loves her, and he knows that it would just be even more selfish if he were to be with her.

He takes a shaky breath, exposing to her that he's crying too, before he pushes the latch and the window open, the air blowing briskly on his face, making him feeling even more colder than he already is. He climbs out onto the fire escape, letting one of his biocables attach to the side of the apartment, swinging off on the chilly night.

He never looks back.

.

It's the worst kind of heartbreak, it's one where she collapses on the floor, sobbing and clutching her heart because nothing feels right anymore, and it's not the type of heartbreak where life stops completely, because even _that _would be easier. The hardest part about this is that life inevitably goes on - that she has to live without the one person that meant (_means_) the entire world to her. She screams in her pillow and she cries because she doesn't really know what to do – she's never felt so broken in her life.

And she feels... _lost_. Completely, totally, and entirely lost, because all the times where she would spend worrying about Peter Parker, talking to Peter Parker, or loving Peter Parker, are just gone. And there's empty space and she doesn't know what to do with it, so she throws herself in her studies and she lets herself cry all she wants to. She doesn't know who to tell when her brother plays _another_ prank on her and when she gets an offer to enter a summer program to this university she's been dying to attend since she was a little girl and that even though she has other friends- good, _close_ friends, she's always gone to Peter first, but now she can't.

But Gwen Stacy is not weak. She is resilient, she is strong, she is beautiful, and she'll never let herself reach rock bottom. But still, even though she acts like nothing is wrong, there are still bags under her eyes because she couldn't sleep, and even when she laughs, it doesn't sound as lively as it used to. It's a sad transformation, and everyone she's ever talked to notices the change in her too.

They say the first love hurts the most because that's the first person you give your everything to, the only one where you honestly, truly believed that you would get your happy ending. But it feels different for Gwen - it feels like the story hasn't ended yet, that it's a book with the last page ripped out and she's never quite felt so out of place in her life. She reaches forward to grab the Spider-Man plushie with the happy smile and the big eyes that had been sitting so comfortably in her bed and she throws it as hard as she can, so it hits the wall and bounces off, knocking over the pictures she had framed of her and Peter from Winter Formal.

She can't help but think what good aim she has.

.

The breakup isn't easy on Peter. He's always been a sort of quiet person, one that's reticent and keeps things to himself, which is completely _awful_, because not only is he not telling anyone how he's feeling, it's all been kept inside and suffocating him. Everything reminds him of her, every single time he sees a stuffed bunny or the song Stacy's Mom comes on shuffle on his iPod, his heart _hurts_ and he has to stop and close his eyes before he can continue on again.

Sometimes he'll walk past Oscorp and remember brighter times, when he snuck in as an intern and disobeyed her requests from him to stay out of trouble. He remembers how it felt to kiss her on the bleachers at school after all those months of sneakily taking shots of her without her noticing.

It's a habit that's hard to break - sometimes he'll still see her, looking into her locker or reading a book and he'll subconsciously take out a camera, because the light is hitting her in just the right way, and sometimes he'll even _take_ the picture too.

He wonders if he's always been this much of a stalker.

.

She sits with her long time friend Clementine at lunch, twirling her pasta around her fork and they talk about Chemistry and the decathalon, how difficult the test in math was, and the newest Channing Tatum movie coming out in theaters, and little by little, she's starting to feel better again.

Even she has to admit that it's not the same as talking about how to defeat a mutant lizard gone wrong, nor trying to treat bloodied cuts that heal impossibly fast, but it's definitely something she likes, something different, something that's good for her. The topic of Peter Parker never comes up, and she likes it that way.

.

"What happened between you and Gwen?" He hears from the desk on his left in history class where they're listening to a particularly boring lecture analyzing the Bill of Rights. Peter looks over and sees Piper Harrison, a peppy, overly-happy girl who always seems to speak with a high-pitched squeak in her voice and to be honest, he finds her kind of intimidating.

He's surprised by the question, he hadn't known that people suspected he and Gwen were together, they never really set a relationship status on Facebook and he's never really been into showing PDA with people around. "What?" he whispers back, a confused look on his face.

Piper pushes her dark hair behind her shoulder, in an entirely preppy way. "Weren't you guys, like, an _item_?" She asks, and he wonders how someone could have such a dramatic edge to their voice.

He thinks that maybe he should deny it, but he knows for a fact that what they were in was a relationship, if not more, and he just sighs. "I guess," he replies, but that's all he says. Nothing more.

"What a shame," Piper continues, playing with the ends of her hair and checking for split ends - and then she turns to look at him again. "You guys were such a cute couple."

He doesn't quite know what to say, but just that comment makes him smile.

.

She still watches the news every day. She sits in front of the TV set in their living room during the five o'clock news and again in the morning at the early morning news – not because she likes to torture herself by hearing about Spider-Man (who is _always_ on the news), but because despite it all, despite him leaving her and hurting her and making her feel like the dirt beneath his feet, she still loves him.

Gwen always checks up on him, makes sure he's okay and that he didn't fall to his death overnight, though she dreads the day she'll watch the news and there'll be a news segment about how the legendary Spider-Man is dead. She feels sick to the stomach just at the thought.

One day her mom asks her why she watches the news so much, she just says that she's required to for her AP Government class, to keep up with current events and whatnot. But Gwen Stacy is a liar, because when she's eating breakfast with her face pressed to the screen, it's not because she cares about the nominations for President or anything, but she cares about a certain spider-costume clad boy.

.

Flash pokes him in English class as he's beginning to nod asleep, it's with the sharp end of his pencil and it stabs him and he jerks awake. "Ow," Peter says, glaring at Flash to his side. He rubs his arm where he was just brutally assaulted by a number two sharpened pencil.

"Dude, what is up with you?" Flash asks, squinting at him and whispering through the work period where they're supposed to be annotating some story called _The Lottery_. "For like the past few days, you've been like, completely dead or something."

Peter doesn't bother explaining how he can't sleep at night because there are criminals to stop, and that even when he gets home and it's late, he still can't sleep because he's still thinking about Gwen and how much he wants to be with her and he can't. He doesn't say anything about how sometimes he'll just lay in bed and his brain would never shut off, but instead he makes some lame excuse, "You know, um, homework and stuff."

Flash rolls his eyes. "Dude, if this is about a girl-" For a dimwitted bully character, Flash actually has pretty good intiuition skills, and isn't as dense as most would picture him as. "- she's not worth losing sleep over. Don't be so whipped."

It's weird but Peter actually thinks that this is the best advice Flash has ever given him.

.

She thinks things would be easier if she didn't have to see him every day.

He passes her in the hallway, and they _always_ meet eyes, before they walk past each other, and she's always left confused and hurt and his eyes are always so intense, and it always feels like he's going to talk to her, and the minute she thinks he will, he looks away, down to his feet. Every single time, she yells at herself for being so naïve.

It's also difficult that he sits behind her in their Biology class. Because even though she's not looking at him, she can feel him staring at her, and she just wants to scream. He's not allowed to do this. He's not allowed to break things off with her, ignore her, but still give her those looks that tell her that he still loves her.

It's just not right.

It makes Gwen angrier than she ever knew possible, she feels this unbearable heat in her veins every time and she wants to hate him, thinks of mean things of him, but every single time she passes him in the hallway again, all the hate dissipates and she knows that she's completely, head-over-heels in love.

.

He misses her more than he can ever bear. He misses her almost all the time and when he's not missing her, he's thinking about her and remembering all the sweet moments he had treasured spending with her. He wants to kiss her again, he wants to hug her and love her the way she deserves to be loved, and he knows that even if she's with someone in the near future, they will never love her the way he does. Because there is no one in the world that is capable of loving Gwen Stacy to the magnitude that Peter Parker does.

He tortures himself too. He still looks through the photos of her, from all those times he's liked her from afar, to the pictures they jokingly took together on his bed. Peter knows the right thing to do is to delete them, but he just can't bring himself to. Every single time, he clicks the file, intending to drag it over to the recycle bin, he just ends up scrolling through them again.

"What's going on with you, Peter?" Aunt May finally asks him one day at dinner. He's staring at his food, his fork pushing the green beans back and forth on his plate when he hears her. He looks up.

"What do you mean?" he responds, but the concern in her eyes has him come to terms with the fact that though he tries to keep Aunt May out of the complications of his life so feverently, she knows more than she lets on.

"You've just been acting so different lately, Peter. I worry about you," she tells him, and there's a moment where he realizes how lucky he is to still have someone who cares about him, even though he's made so many mistakes beyond repair.

Peter sighs, forcing himself to eat a piece of the meatloaf in front of him. "There's nothing to worry about," he tries to convince her, though he knows she isn't.

"Is this about that girl?" she prods. "Gwen?"

Hearing her name makes him wince a little, there's so much that he tries to ignore, but no matter how hard he tries, it seems that he can never avoid Gwen Stacy. He has given it away, what's been troubling him lately, to Aunt May, by the slightest reaction in body language, and when he meets her eyes again, he knows she knows.

But yet, he still tries to insist that is not it. "No," Peter says, a little too quickly. Which he wants to smack himself for, because it only affirms her suspicions.

She doesn't ask anything more, she doesn't try to get him to tell her what happened between the both of them, which he is thankful for, but she doesn't drop the subject either. "She's a special girl. Polite, kind, good-hearted," Aunt May says, but Peter already knows all these things, which makes things so much harder. He wants to stand up, push his food away and lock himself in the confines of his room, because he's this close to cracking again. But he doesn't, he forces himself to keep himself planted on the seat.

"She loves you, I can tell. I hope you'll do the right thing," Aunt May finishes, standing up to begin the dishes. But he tries to block out her words, and he's glad that she doesn't press the subject anymore.

.

When Clementine invites Gwen to an art gallery showcase featuring a piece of her art - it's definitely not something she's ever done before, because she's always been so caught up in her internship and her school- she goes to support her because that's what friends do, right? What she doesn't expect is meeting one of Clementine's friends - Bradley, he's eighteen-years-old, and he goes to Monarch Prep – a fancy private school halfway across town.

And as she's talking to him, he tells her all about how he wants to go to Brown University to study neuroscience, and he's talking about his hopes and dreams, and she knows that if it was just a year ago she would've fallen head over heels for this guy in a heartbeat. He's intelligent, he's kind, he's sweet and Bradley is exactly the kind of boy that Gwen would be with – but there's just one thing: he's not Peter Parker.

But Gwen tries to forget, she forgets the nagging feeling that doesn't quite feel right in her chest as she laughs with this boy and expresses interest in this boy and doesn't brush off his blatant attempts of flirting with her. She doesn't know why she feels like she's being unfaithful, because Peter has made it clear to her that they cannot be together, but even as she tries not to think about it, it still bothers her from the back of her mind.

"Well, it looks like it's getting late," Bradley says, glancing at his watch and giving her a reluctant smile, as if he doesn't want to leave. He takes out his wallet and pulls out a card, because he works part-time at a Verizon cellphone booth, and hands it to her. "If you ever want to grab some coffee or something, just give me a call," he says to her, though she realizes by the hopeful sound of his voice that it's not really an option.

But she takes the card anyway, slips it in her purse, and somehow she feels that she might actually be okay again.

.

He comes home one day after school, tired, exhausted, and he crashes on the couch, letting his eyes drift close for a while. He's never been so worn out in his life - teenagers aren't really made to stay out and fight crime every night, and then head to school at 7 AM in the morning to endure a painful seven hours of tedious classes and horrible people.

TGIF isn't something he usually says - but at that moment, it applies so much. _Thank God, it's Friday!_

When he wakes up, it's 7 PM and he realizes that his nap was way longer than he had intended, he gets up way too quick, and almost falls. "Peter," Aunt May says from behind him, her voice sort of weary, sad-almost. He turns around to face her, and she's looking at him a sort of expectant way. "You're exhausted," she says, a matter of factly. He shrugs in response. "Will you stay in tonight?"

He sighs, beginning to think about another excuse when she speaks again, "Please?"

It's then when Peter realizes that he hasn't spent a night at home for a long time, ever since he first became Spider-Man. "Sure," he agrees, and she seems to smile. "We haven't spent time together in a while," he says. "How about I grab some chinese takeout, maybe rent a movie?"

"That sounds nice," Aunt May replies, light and happy. Sometimes he forgets how completely _human_ Aunt May is, and how lonely she must be without Uncle Ben. He makes a promise that he's going to try harder to spend time with his lovely Aunt, because even though the world needs him, so does she.

"Kung Pao chicken?" he asks, grabbing his skateboard from the side of the door, pocketing his wallet in his jeans.

She nods. "Don't forget the egg rolls!"

He goes to some fancy Chinese restuarant on sixth avenue, because it's either that or Panda Express - and he's not really feeling the latter right now. Plus, the former makes the _best_ fried rice he swears he ever tasted. It's a farther ride, but he hums along the way to keep him occupied and when he finally arrives, he's so hungry that his tummy is twisting and turning.

He grabs a menu and orders, but as he turns around to wait the door opens from behind him, and he curses his luck because the girl who walks in is Gwen Stacy. And she's not alone.

There's a boy standing next to her, light blonde hair, pale skin, blue eyes, broad shoulders. He's about the same height as Peter, if not an inch taller, and he has this sort of pure, prep school look about him that he almosts feels a little inadequate in his loose jacket and sneakers.

"P-Peter," she stammers, surprised, her eyes wide. The smile from her face drops immediately as she freezes in front of him. It seems to have gotten ten degrees hotter in the room, because he feels his neck and ears burning in the silence, it's horribly awkward for a few moments, the tension so thick that you can feel it.

He coughs. "Gwen," he acknowledges her with a slight nod, it's civil - not exactly rude, but not welcoming and warm either. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his jackets, once again cursing his social inability to be the least bit "cool."

She seems to have regained her composure, as she's now standing up straight, but he stills sees her uncomfortableness, the shifting of weight from one leg to another. She's wearing a nice dress, a semi-casual one, but one that is nice enough that he knows this isn't just a normal get-together between friends. He feels his mouth get incredibly dry as he glances over at the man she's with - _her date_, he thinks with a lace of venom on his tongue.

It's a few seconds before he sees her decide to do the polite, normal thing (though he knows that they've never been remotely normal). She forces a tight-lipped smile, "Peter, this is Bradley, my date," she says, and though she's using her civil tone - the way she talks to adults, he can still detect a bit of an angry edge in her voice. She turns to the blondie - _Bradley - _with a smile, "And this is Peter, my-" she stops, suddenly, silence filling the air between them again.

They're not friends - not at all, he knows that. He doesn't think they can ever be friends, not only because of the promise, but because of all the feelings, and all the history, and the incredible chemistry between them that it's unrealistic to just be friends. He almost wants to laugh at how complicated they are, but instead of decides to cut in. "I'm her classmate," he decides to say, because it's safe - it doesn't complicate things any further, and it's ultimately true.

She seems to look relieved. He wonders if his jealousy is showing, he wonders if she suspects the angry, hurt, betrayed feeling filling him from head to toe, though he tries his best to smile and not glare at Bradley. "It's nice to meet you," he says, and though he holds out his hand for him to shake, all he wants to do is punch him and he _knows_ these thoughts should be forbidden.

"Same," Bradley replies, a grin on his face, and he knows it's silly but he can't help what wonder what kind of toothpaste the guy uses - his teeth are inhumanly shining white. "I go to Monarch," he tells him as he takes his hand, his charismatic voice ringing in his ears.

Peter stares at their hands, not willing to look him in the face, before he pulls away his hand. He doesn't know what to do after, he wonders if he should try to engage in a conversation, but thank goodness he doesn't have to think about it too much, because his food is done and he turns around to grab the bag.

"Um, it was, it was good seeing you, Gwen," he stutters, and then he walks out the door without hearing her response. It seems like he'll never be able to escape her.

.

It'd be better if Bradley was easier to hate. Sometimes Peter wishes he was more of a jerk, that he was rude, obnoxious, loud, and not at all the guy that would suit Gwen - because if this were the case, then Peter would feel justified in thinking such awful, terrible things about him. But he knows that despite all the effort trying to convince himself that Gwen and Bradley aren't meant to be, he knows in his heart that he is so much better for her. He's charming, and he doesn't trip over words the way Peter does - he doesn't put Gwen in constant danger, he doesn't hurt her the way Peter does, and just that thought kills him inside.

It's kind of a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, he's so full of jealousy and envy, and he can't do a damn thing about it, because he knows that it's better for her to be happy without him. But every single night, he has this undeniable urge to swing over to her fire escape, knock on her window and apologize to her, beg her to take him back because living without her is almost unbearable. But every single time he makes the journey over to her apartment, he forces himself to stop and focus on other things - like beating up muggers or catching thieves and he swears that one day he'll crack.

The worst part is that when he's laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and willing his eyes to close so he won't be completely dead in class the next morning, the whole scene plays again in his head. He remembers the look on her face as she asks him not to leave, he feels every emotion rushing back as he shuts his eyes tight, begging for his brain to shut off and let him rest.

But the last thing he always sees before he finally falls asleep is Gwen.

.

The Debate Team is doing a Model United Nations with some other high school, and Gwen is stoked. She's been preparing all year for this conference, and she knows _everything_ about the country she's a delegate for, from their Gross Domestic Product to their allies and enemies. She's representing the People's Republic of China - one of the big five with veto power, and she knows that she has to be on top of her game to get all of her resolutions passed.

But Gwen _knows_ she's good, and her voice is strong and loud and it never wavers, and her speeches are well written, and she's very prepared. But when she's talking with the United States delegate during a caucus, she looks over slightly to the side and sees Peter Parker with a camera held up to his face and taking pictures of various people around the room.

It seems like life always seemed to throw them back together, that even though they try to avoid each other, they constantly run into each other again. She breaks character for just a moment, thrown off guard and trailing off. He always seemed to make her lose focus, and they make eye contact, before she clears her throat, apologizes, and continues supporting her claim to the girl in front of her.

She makes it a point to not look over to the corner of the room where she knows he's sitting, for the remainder of the conference. She focuses solely on her debate, on selling her resolutions to the other people, and when it's over, it's a success. She wins the award for the best delegate and she holds her plaque proudly as Peter takes a picture of her. And she swears she sees him smiling at her as the flash goes off.

She's hanging around the room after it's over, talking to a few friends she managed to make throughout the program. She waves goodbye to them as they leave and she turns around and sees Peter, his camera around his neck, his tripod in his hand, looking at her. It's that feeling again, that he's going to talk to her, and she's sure he's going to look away and act like this never happened, but surprisingly he doesn't.

"You did really well," Peter compliments her, doing the boyish-action where he rubs the back of his neck as he talks to her. On instinct, she turns around to see if he's really talking to her, the first time he's initiated a conversation since they've broken up. But there's no one behind her, and she turns back around raising her eyebrows, a guarded look on her face.

"Thank you," she replies, politely. Clasping her hands together in front of her skirt as she looks straight at him - though this is all wrong, she feels way too uncomfortable, too awkward and she wishes they could talk like two regular people.

He uses his free hand to run through his hair, and she can tell he feels the same way. "You were- I-" he splutters, and she used to think this was cute (actually, she _still _does), but now Gwen wishes that he could just tell her what he thinks. He clears his throat, deciding to try again. "I'm proud of you."

She doesn't quite know how to respond, she has this warm feeling running through her veins, and she can't help the small smile that's spreading across her face. She looks down, and she feels like a little shy girl again, feeling all good inside when her teacher praises her in front of the other teachers.

"Thanks," Gwen repeats, though this time it sounds a little more relaxed, a little more natural, and it's almost like they're back to old times.

He looks at her for a moment, and then he quickly looks down to grab his camera. "Um, I took a lot of pictures for the Debate team," he says suddenly, holding his camera as if it was his anchor. "And I need some help - you know, going through them and choosing which ones to use for the yearbook. Do you mind, uh, coming over and helping me sort them out?" he asks. Peter's cheeks are pink now, and it always amuses her how easily he gets embarassed. He seems to backtrack though, "I mean, only if you're not busy, or whenever, you know?"

Gwen raises her eyebrows, because she knows for a fact that he doesn't need her help sorting out photos (not that she'd be much of a help anyway, all his pictures look good to her, even the ones he claims aren't the best), and it seems like something they'd do together if they were still dating, but not now. She wonders about his motives, so she doesn't hesitate to agree. "I don't mind," she tells him, though she's sounding sort of cautious. "I'm not busy at four. Is that good?"

Peter nods. "Alright then, come over at four," he says, and she thinks that they're one step closer to being normal.

.

He doesn't quite know his intention for inviting her over to do a job that doesn't really require more than one person. He supposes it's because he doesn't want her to think that he hates her, that ignoring her isn't exactly the best way to stay on relatively good terms with a person. Peter knows it's dangerous, uncharted territory to be friends with Gwen, but he can't help but want to try it out anyway, because he doesn't want her thinking he's the bad guy.

"This one's nice," Gwen says, leaning over intently and glancing at his monitor in a concentrated sort of gaze. The space between her eyebrows are scrunched up and her nose is crinkled and she looks like a little mouse and he finds it completely adorable. She leans back from the screen, and he sees that it's an off-center picture of two people on the debate team standing up - it's definitely not his best one. "I think," she adds when she sees his expression.

Peter laughs, clicking to the next picture, which is probably a hundred times better than the last one in every way. "What about this one?" he asks, curious about her reaction.

"Um," she starts, moving closer to look at the picture again, which he finds completely amusing because there's a zoom button and it's much easier than leaning back and forth in the screen. "I don't really see a difference," Gwen admits, a sheepish look on her face. He changes the photo back to the old one, switching back and forth so she can see how the second one is clearly better.

"The light is more focused here, it really sets the tone," Peter tries to explain, though he's never been good at explaining anything at all.

Gwen sighs dramatically, leaning back on his chair in a surrending sort of way. "Oh, I give up!" she cries, crossing her arms over her chest. He laughs at the pouty look on her face and she glares at him, in more of a joking way. "I'm not an _artsy_ person, I'm a _science_ person," she says, pridefully, trying to justify herself.

He snorts. "You can be both, you know," Peter says, grabbing a medal from a Science Fair competition he participated in. He twirls it around his wrist to make a point.

"Well, maybe you're just _not _human!" she exclaims, pushing herself away from the desk.

"Maybe I'm not," he murmurs, so nonchalantly it seemed like an average thing for him. She covers her hand over her mouth, laughing as she realizes what she had said. He laughs along with her, "They don't call me Spider-Man for nothing!" he jokes, the biggest smile on his face.

They don't get much done that afternoon, but they talk and laugh and act like nothing ever happened between them and it seems so much like old times, he wonders if they could be like this all the time.

.

She goes out with Bradley on a Friday night - he takes her out to another expensive looking restaurant, a steak house this time. She wears a black cocktail dress because there's a dress code and he wears a suit and as they walk into the crowded, way-too-quiet for a normal dinner, restaurant, she selfishly misses just spending time with Peter in each other's rooms or going to silly things like a carnival, and not having to feel like she's going out to a formal event all the time. She knows it's wrong, but she feels so nostalgic.

But Gwen appreciates Bradley, she is not a terrible person and though she does wish Bradley was the type of person to just hang out and eat comfort foods, though she knows that she won't be able to change him, so she just goes along with it, smiles, and tries to have a good time.

"It's just preposterous how lower class people act sometimes," Bradley says with a snicker, and that's when she realizes she hasn't exactly been listening to what he's been saying. Gwen nods along, acting engaged, though she's beginning to realize that charming, rich Bradley is probably one of the most judgmental people she's ever met. He's polite, he's intelligent, but he's so caught up with his reputation that sometimes she feels like just a blonde doll next to him that he can show off to his friends.

"I completely agree," she tells him, though she's not sure what she's agreeing with. She's glad that he's talkative because she doesn't have to say much and he just carries the conversation, animatedly speaking about whatever happens in his high-class life.

He pays for dinner and drives her home, and in front of her apartment he leans forward to kiss her. Gwen closes her eyes and lets him kiss her, and she's sort of excited, because she's been longing for that feeling of being kissed again, the way it makes her feel like she's flying and leaves her breathless and wanting more. But as Bradley presses her lips against hers, and she responds - desperate to have that feeling again. But when he pulls away, she's disappointed that it wasn't as special as she was hoping it would be.

She wonders if all kisses feel like this, physical and somewhat good, but not at all breathtaking like her kisses with Peter. Bradley smiles at her and he leaves, but she's standing there in the hallway, playing with her necklace and hoping that as time passes, she'll feel it with Bradley.

When Gwen finally turns to go back into her apartment, into her room, she picks up the Spider-Man plushie that's still on the ground, kisses it on the top of it's head and sits it up gently on her nightstand.

.

He speaks to Gwen in Biology before class, the next Monday, turning around and casually starting a conversation. "I heard from the people in first period that we're going to have a sub today," Peter remarks, though he feels like this kind of talking is safe, it's small-talk and it's nice, and he's sure nothing bad can just come out of talking to her.

"Really?" she asks, looking up from the reading packet that's supposed to be due today - assuming the teacher was present. "I hope not. I worked all night on this packet, and if it's not due today, I'll rip my hair out."

"Don't do that," he says with a smile. "I don't think you would look half as attractive with bald spots." He mentally smacks himself at all the dumb things he says in front of her - if only he was like all the boys that talk in the locker room about which girl they hooked up with at the latest party. Maybe life would be easier that way.

She looks amused. "Thanks for the advice," she responds, slowly. "I think." Gwen straightens her headband on her head, in response and out of habit.

"Did you see Flash's new shirt this morning?" he asks, trying to change the subject. He remembers feeling highly entertained whenever Flash would go to school with more Spider-Man merchandise, and he relishes in the feeling that the boy who used to torment him, openly worships him at the same time.

She pauses. "I didn't," she says, curiously. "What was it?"

Peter laughs. "I think you'll have to see on your own. Look out for him in the hallways, alright?" he says as the substitute teacher walks in. She curses (well not _really_) under her breath as he lets out a chuckle. And later when they're walking out of the classroom, she spots Flash and she starts giggling and he thinks that maybe they _can_ be friends.

.

She's sitting at her computer and typing up an essay for her British literature class when she hears a familiar knock on the window. She thinks she's imagining it, because Gwen is sure that even though Peter is being friendly to her lately, there's no way that he would resort to this again. But then she hears it again, more frenzied this time and she turns around to face - _her heart nearly stops _at what she sees.

It's Peter, and he's hurt, _badly_. There's blood everywhere in his abdomen and he's so pale and getting paler that she literally runs over to the window and pulls him in. He collapses on her ground, and he's laying there all bloodied and mangled and she's never been so scared in her life. She's never seen so much blood before and she's already crying, tears flowing out of her eyes as she tries not to panic, but it's so hard.

Gwen tries to remember everything she knows about treating a wound, from health class and from manuals, "Peter!" she says as she sees him start to close his eyes. "Peter, stay awake, please, _please _try to stay awake for me, okay?" She hears a tiny whisper of an okay for her and she tries to apply pressure on this wound as he winces in pain.

"I'm sorry Peter," she apologizes in desperation, tears still stemming out of her eyes. She tries to pull the suit off of him so she can clean the wound, but it's so tight that it's impossible for her to do it. "Peter, I need you to help me get this off, okay?" She struggles and he helps her pull it off, though even with his abilities he's still weak from all the blood loss.

"God, there's so much," she cries, as she applies more pressure on the wound to help it stop bleeding. She's never seen this much blood before - she's not even aware that there's this much blood in the human body and it terrifies her. After the bleeding begins to stop, she grabs a towel and wets it, beginning to clean the wound. He winces every time, but he never screams, he never says a word. And Gwen's crying so much that it's wetting the floor and she's making these awful sounds from her throat and she wishes she could stop, but her hearts beating so fast and she's trembling that she just _can't_.

"It's okay," Peter manages to say, his voice raspy. And she thinks it's ironic that even though he's the one hurt, he's still trying to comfort her and tell her it's okay, and she really shouldn't be worrying him like this. "I heal fast," he tells her, trying to make her feel better. "I just need to rest."

There's blood all over her floor and she knows that she's going to have a hell of a time trying to clean it all up before her mom notices, but she just doesn't care right now. She's still shaking and trying to help him up onto her bed so he can rest. "Gwen, please don't cry," Peter says, pushing himself against the wall so he can sit up. He reaches over and tucks a stray hair behind her ear and though he's still pale, she knows he's going to live.

But even as he says that, she starts sobbing more, her heart dropping at the thought of him dying in her arms. "Do you have any idea?" she blubbering, choking on her tears. "Do you have _any idea_ how much you scared me? I thought you were going to die!" she says, trying to take more air in her lungs though she's finding it more difficult to breathe. "I was so scared," she repeats, bringing her fingers up to furiously wipe her tears.

He moves closer to her wrapping one arm around her as she cries, and this feels too intimate for their friendship, but she doesn't care right now. "Never again, Peter Parker," she says, her tone fierce with so much severity that it even scares herself. It's then when she knows that if Peter Parker dies - a part of her will die too.

They don't speak after that, he just holds on tighter to her until they both fall asleep.

When she wakes up the next morning, he's already gone.

.

When he leaves her, he realizes that he was wrong- there is no way they can be friends. He decides that the best thing to do is to cut off all communication with her, because he knows that he can die any moment, and what he has learned from last night is that if he keeps going on like this, if he dies, then he'll hurt her more than ever. Peter thinks that the only solution is to cut her off, to make her believe that he hates her and only then does he think that she'll be able to move on and live her life without him.

He picks up his phone to dial her number, knowing that she is still asleep so he can leave a voicemail - because he's that much of a coward, even he can admit it.

"_This is Gwen Stacy, I'm sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message."_

Peter almost loses it when he hears her recorded message, but he takes a deep breath and waits for the beep. "Gwen, it's Peter," he starts, letting out a loud sigh. "We can't do this- we, we can't be friends," he says, trying to sound cold. "I don't want to be with you," he pauses taking a few breaths in the silence as he racks his brain to try to solidify their ending. "And Gwen-" but he never gets to finish, because the beep goes off and he hears the sound of the automated voice speaking again.

"_If you are unsatisfied with your message and would like to record again, please press one._"

He hangs up the phone.

.

She feels disgusting. She feels like a cheater, she feels like a slut, and she hates feeling this way, because even though she didn't do anything with Peter last night, she knows that her heart doesn't belong with Bradley and has never belonged with him. She sees one new voicemail message, but she ignores it because she's intent on calling Bradley because in her mind, she's committing infidelity, and she _hates _herself for it. They meet at a coffee shop near her apartment.

"Bradley," she starts with a sigh.

But before she can say anything else, he looks at her with a weary expression. "You're breaking up with me, aren't you?" He doesn't look too devastated, he looks like he's been expecting it all this time, and she's consumed with so much guilt that she can hardly look at him straight.

She looks at the coffee in her hands as she bits her lip and gives him a small nod.

"It's that Peter guy, isn't it?" he asks her, bitterly. She's about to protest but then she sees this all-knowing look on his face and she just knows there's no point in trying to convince him otherwise. She sighs.

"I knew it," Bradley says. And the next thing he says, she knows will stay in her mind for all of eternity. "I saw the way you looked at him. I never had a chance."

.

He hears the doorbell ring and he pulls himself away from editing pictures on his computer to go answer the door. He isn't expecting much, but when he opens the door and sees a _livid_, seething Gwen Stacy on his front porch, and her eyes are fiery and absolutely furious that for the first moment in his life, he's absolutely terrified her.

"_Peter Parker_," she snaps, her voice dark and absolutely outraged. "You are single-handed the most _atrocious_, most _imbecelic_, down-right _cruel_ person I have ever known," she says, and she's not even yelling and that scares him the most. She is saying it in the lowest voice he has ever heard her speak to him, as she lets himself into his house, pushing past him.

"_Who_ with the least bit of humanity _says _that to someone over a _voicemail_?" She shoves him, trying to make him fall, but he's stronger than her and stands his ground and it infuriates her even more. He's petrified, never seen this side of her before and he almost cowers away from her. "Do you realize how much _that hurts_? You didn't even have the _decency_ to tell me to my face! Some superhero _you are_, you are just a _coward_!"

Peter opens his mouth to say something, to retaliate, even though he has no idea when he's going to say when she holds her hand up to stop him.

"No, I've heard _enough_ of what you've had to say," Gwen says, silencing him with a single sentence. "Now you have to listen to what _I_ have to say," she demands, authoritatively, her hands on her hips and there's no possible way he can fight her on this, because she's giving him _this_ look that he feels like she's going to rip his head off if he tries to speak.

"How _dare_ you do this to me! How can you push me away and ignore me and then the minute I start being the slightest bit happy, you reel me back in, only to hurt me again!" she says, exasperated. "This thing you're doing – you think it's noble to be staying away from me, you think you're saving me, but you're not! You're hurting me, Peter, it _hurts_."

It's like all her anger turns into to tears, because the indignant tone of her voice and angry yell turning into poignant words and sad laments. He hears all this, and it's like a slap in the face, having to deal with all the things that he's caused on her by trying to do the right thing. It seems as if no matter what he does, he's always doing something wrong.

She continues, her voice beginning to waver. "All I can think about is you. The only one I want to be with is you. You drive me absolutely insane and you make me mad, and I want to hate you, I really do, but no matter how hard I try, I just _can't_," she seems bitter as she's telling him all this, and he's listening intently and it's killing him, facing the fact that he's hurt her beyond his comprehension level. She takes a deep, shaky breath, but she doesn't stop, it's like everything is coming out all at once and he wonders how long she's been keeping this in. "When I picture my future, you're always there. And I know when we kiss – it's not just me who feels it, but I just know. This can't be all me, it can't, and I just – I know my dad means the best for me, I know he does and I love him for it, but I know if he was here right now, and he sees how miserable I am without you, he'd tell you to forget the promise, I just know it."

Gwen's beginning to cry now, real tears falling out of her eyes and it's crazy how emotional she's been lately, it's like everything's just spilling out of her and she's losing herself after trying to hold herself together for so long. "I am just _falling_ apart, Peter, and I'm sad all the time, and it's hard enough dealing with losing my father, but then I lose you - the one person I honestly truly believed in."

He's standing there, trying to take it all in, and he can honestly say he's never felt as bad as he does right now. Regret, guilt, confusion, sad, all wrapped up in one and he doesn't know how to sort them all out.

"I'm _broken_, Peter, you _broke_ me," Gwen says, in the most heartbreaking voice he has ever heard in his entire life. She's sobbing, loud, hiccuping sobs that make her tremble all around and she's taking in big gasps as if she can't get enough air in her system. Her whole entire body is shaking, there's tears everywhere, and she's doing the thing again - wrapping her arms around herself as if that was the only thing keeping her from completely falling apart.

It's all these raw feelings that is filling him to the core, a mess of all these conflicting emotions that overwhelms him and scares him, and he's not capable of handling this. He doesn't know what to do - if the right thing is to stay away from Gwen to keep her out of danger, why does it feel so wrong as he's standing there, looking at her cry her eyes out. This can't be right, it can't be right to inflict this much pain on the both of them.

He lets himself walk towards her, not exactly by choice, but by instinct. There are a million things running through Peter's mind, but one that stands out the most is that it's not Spider-Man's enemies that are hurting her, it's _him_. He's hurting her more than he's ever known possible, and he hates himself for it. He steps closer to her, trying to close the distance between them.

Gwen sees him approaching her and she looks up. "Stop," she demands, though he ignores her and keeps walking towards her. "I mean it. If you leave again, I don't think I can handle it a second time."

Then it clicks, it's like everything comes together for him: there is no possible way they can live without each other. And when he finally speaks, it's a quiet, almost like a whisper, but it holds so much sincerity and promise in it that he hopes with every part of his soul that she'll believe him. "I'm not leaving, Gwen," he promises, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to his chest. "Not now, not ever."

And she's sobbing in his arms, soaking his clothes, and shaking, but he's holding her tight and safe and secure, and even though he knows he's breaking the promise - he's making her another one, one that he intends to keep.

.

And it just happens. They fall back together easily, effortlessly and they're back to everything they used to do together. It's when she's laying on his bed, biting on the edge of her pencil as she's working on her statistics homework when he first tells her. It's not particularly dramatic how it happens, he's just sitting there on the ground and looking up at her - and it just comes out. "I love you," he says, beautifully and it's possibly the truest thing he's ever said in his entire life.

It's not news to any of them, because it's never been something they questioned about each other, but it's still the first time he's said it to her, and the words just fall off his tongue and it feels so nice to say it.

Gwen looks up at him, completely caught off guard, as the pencil drops from her hand. "Really?" she asks, though he's not sure why she would - she shouldn't have any doubt in her mind that he loves her.

He gets up from the ground and leans over on the bed so their faces are nearly touching. "Really," Peter says.

"I love you too," she replies, breathily, touching his cheek with her fingers. And when he kisses her this time, he knows that he's never going to be able to let her go this time.

.

It's true. He never does. They graduate high school and both attend Empire State University, and somewhere along the way, they get their happily ever after.

He holds her tight as he swings them all the way to the rooftop of her old apartment (though she had long since moved out) – to where it all started, where their first kiss was, where he totally and completely fell for her. He leans over and kisses her all he wants, closing his eyes and feeling all the nostalgia coming back to him, when they were seventeen years old and he first exposed his identity to her and he was nervous and had butterflies. Now they're twenty-three years old, and maybe they're too young for forever, but he knows that's what he wants with her.

When he pulls away, his eyes are shining and smiling in a sort of geeky way that he's never lost with age. "Close your eyes," Peter whispers in her ear as he takes her hand and leads her to the other side of the rooftop, where between two poles, he has created something that he is completely proud of (even though he _did_ steal the idea from Charlotte's Web).

"Can I open them now?" Gwen asks, impatiently, curiosity expressed in her tone, which only makes him more anxious.

"Not yet," he says, as he reaches into his pocket and takes out a red velvet box from his pocket and bends down on one knee. "You can open your eyes now," he tells her and when she does, her mouth drops open.

Behind him is a spider web he created to spell out the words, "Will you marry me?"

He's rehearsed this moment in front of a mirror so many times, because he's _definitely_ not stuttering or spluttering this time—he's memorized what he's going to say and it's like he has it permanently etched in his mind. Peter looks up at the girl he loves, pops open the velvet box, and with all of his heart, he begins to speak.

"I love you with every part of me and I promise no matter all the obstacles we might have to go through, I will always love you," he starts, and she looks like she's about to cry, but there's this smile on her face and she has her fingers clasped over her mouth. "And even though I may be Spider-Man, you will _always_ be my hero. Gwen Stacy, will you marry me?"

She's looking at him with these captivating blue eyes, and she's already crying and full of emotion as she nods and manages to get out her answer, "Yes," she says, nodding over and over again. "Yes_yesyesyesyes_!" she exclaims, hearing her answer echo over the rooftop.

He stands up and wraps his arms around her waist, pressing his body against hers and leaning down to kiss her passionately, she tangles her fingers in her hair and he doesn't ever want to stop kissing her, but he knows he has to. When they part, the smile won't leave his face, and she watches as he slips the ring on her left hand and lifts it up to kiss it on her finger.

.

Emily May Parker is born on a warm autumn day when Peter and Gwen are both twenty-five. He holds her hand while she's in labor and he endures all the screaming and verbal torture he's getting for getting her pregnant and making her go through so much pain. But everything is worth it when he sees his baby girl being lifted into her mother (and love of his life's) arms and he swears he falls a little more in love with her as she holds their child.

Their child... their baby girl, he loves Emily so much already, and he knows that he'll love her until the day he dies. He wants to protect her from everything, from a broken heart to a broken arm and he knows the minute Gwen hands her to him, he'll do anything for her.

"Remember when we were seventeen and I asked you if you wanted to get married and have kids?" Gwen asks him, and he only takes his eyes off his daughter in his arms to glance up at his _wife_. He nods, this huge grin spreading across his face.

"It happened," she breathes. And when he moves towards her so they can hold Emily May Parker together, and for a minute, it's like he can see their future, bright, happy, _together_. And he knows she sees it too as he leans over and captures her lips in a kiss.

There's something really special about your first love. It's the one that sweeps you off your feet, leaves you breathless and it's the first one makes you believe that something can actually last forever. But there's something really _amazing_ about your last love. It's the one that makes everything worth it in the end, all the heartbreak, all the searching, all the hoping - and it's the one that actually lasts forever. Sometimes, if you're lucky, _really _lucky, your first love just might be your last.

* * *

_If you're feeling kind, please leave a review and let me know your thoughts! :) Thanks for reading to the end, by the way, I really really appreciate it, and I really appreciate all of you, even though as I'm writing this, I don't know who you are yet! Hehe!_ _:D_

_But yeah, I really love hearing from you guys! And also, I know this is shameless self-promoting, but my tumblr is the same as my penname, so if you're looking for a not-at-all-quality, but fan-girling and personal blog to follow, you should follow me and tell me that you read this or something!_

_Oh, and now it's time for me to go! Bye! :D_

_- September Light_


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